Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Popular student card

Being kind of a kiasu mom, what do I do when my princess came back with less-than-satisfactory results? By "less-than-satisfactory", I meant she could've done better without careless mistakes. She did exercises at home, she did 2 sets of past year questions - one for her school and one for another school (the one for another school purchase wrong, oh well). For important subjects like Maths, Mandarin, BM, the exercises she did are from the leftover workbooks from her daycare and hand-me-downs from ex-colleague. It was like one or two workbooks for each subject. Still she did some mistakes in exam paper that she did not do during the exercises done just a few days before exam. She also copied wrong words which caused her to lose marks for BM Penulisan and Mandarin Penulisan. She forgot to put units for her Maths (but she didn't make this mistake during exercise) and she lost marks for this subject too. OK OK, so we do not know all the exam results yet. Still it made me rethink my strategy for coaching our princess. She knew she did not meet my expectation and she felt really bad about it.

In order to sharpen her mind during the holidays and prepare her for the new school year, I've decided to go the way of the "tuition teacher method". After some discussion with a friend and looking at how daycare centers coach children, I realize most of them are using workbooks. And I believe they use lots of it. So in my moderated version, I started with one or two workbooks for the holidays. I'm revising the standard 1 syllabus with her, as only one or two publishers have come up with workbooks for the new syllabus KSSR for standard 2. At least when I looked at the bookstores this week.

Which comes to the title of this post, the Popular student card. I saw ad in newspaper that Popular Gurney Plaza is having member sale from 26-28 October 2011 for all books and revision books. This is only for members. However the ad kinda mislead me to believe that new application for member card will have free gift. Because student card application and renewal is NOT ENTITLED :( Oh ok, so it is just RM10 for 2-year membership, only for students age 7-12 years old.

So far the discount I got is RM10.40 for today's purchase. And I got 2 almost freebie, one is mechanical pencil and one memo pad for RM0.10 each with newspaper coupon. So actually the card is fully giving discount of 10% or whatever rebate given by Popular (sometimes they have 20% or 30% rebate) for the next 2 years. This is actually better savings than MPH Kidz Club membership if the title is the same, as the Popular student card is cheaper. However most of the time, the titles available at MPH and Popular is not really of the same genre. If your children need revision books, go for Popular student card if there's a school-going 7 to 12-year-old in your household. Do note that only certain books get discount with the card as "nett-priced items" do not get the discount. "Nett-priced items" are the ones where price tag will say "NETT", for example some revision books are nett-priced items (not all), magazines are nett price items.

I'd be on constant lookout for Popular member sale now that I'm a member our princess is a student member. Those 20% or 30% rebate do add up.

As for Borders, it's out of my target now especially after I bought an Enid Blyton Rewards book at RM16.90 with no discount. I found the same book at Popular and MPH going for only RM10.90. ARGH! My pain when I saw the price tag!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Penang to give RM100 to students for standard 1, standard 4, form 1 and form 4

The news article link here and here. Very glad to have this news as it will help the parents in Penang. Aid will start from next year, 2012. Now I wonder how to get it? :)

Friday, October 21, 2011

RM100 student aid via school?

There's a news coverage by the TV stations that DPM said they will use BSN to disburse the RM100 per student aid to the schools, and the schools will then distribute to students. Makes one wonder how it will happen. No further official annoucements were made on it though. Again, "to be determined". Not that we are waiting for the student aid, but curious about this carrot. There's report that parents can even "opt out". I hope parents don't opt out as it's the only thing that middle class parents with school-going children can get. Even if you're well-to-do, might as well get it and donate it to the needy students instead of 益 the big guys, right?

And the aid will be available in December to be in time for back-to-school next year. Continue to wait for "to-be-determined" news.

Update 24 Oct:  http://www.thesundaily.my/news/187525. Seems like parents will be invited to school to get the aid money. I hope we do get our letter. Oh and the remark made about using the aid for example new mobile phone purchase is totally out of line. Are the IQ of people in this country  so low until have to mention this aid is not meant for buying new mobile phones?? Alamak!

Friday, October 14, 2011

Article in The Star: Will You Take The RM100

This article in The Star got me fuming. Yes I would take the RM100 for school children, and why not? We had been diligently paying income tax since started working. The question is, how we are going to get it - will there be long forms to fill, will we have to queue at the appointed bank BSN, is there a due date as we are all busy people? There are so many open ended questions and details are so vague. And will it even be in time for the new school year? Maybe the writer doesn't have school going children or he leaves all the management to the Missus. Even if the school fees of RM24.50 is waived (primary, don't remember the secondary school fees as no child in secondary school yet), there are other fees like computer class fees and payment for extra workbooks for those in Chinese medium school. Perhaps those in Sekolah Kebangsaan don't have to purchase extra workbooks (don't know of anyone close whose child goes to sekolah kebangsaan so not sure of this). After all this "work" to get the RM100, it's only for 2012. It's only a one-off payment, remember?? Let's wait for HOW to get the RM100 specifically.

For those middle class folks whose children are not yet in primary, secondary school or college/university, they really do not get anything. Those who only have babies, or kindy going children next year, life goes on as usual without any goodies. Book voucher of RM200 for college students, let's keep our fingers crossed over how it will be implemented.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

History subject for 2014 children?

See these:
1. http://ubkskbtkgemilang10.blogspot.com/2010/10/sejarah-matapelajaran-teras-kssr-2014.html
2. http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/2puad/Article
3. http://www.teo-education.com/teo/?cat=110&paged=2

FAINT. It is still unclear to me if the authourities wanted to make history a subject for standard 1 or standard 4 students or both. Those of us who have school-going children or soon-to-be school-going children sure kena somehow or other. The news was from last year, I was just too busy last year to note the impact to our poor kids.
#1 -- the "history" subject will be based on "unsur kewarganegaraan, patriotisme dan perlembagaan" -- this means only the last 50 to 60 years or so of the country's history from around Merdeka time??
#2 --  To elaborate more, somewhere in the newspaper article, the speaker was quoted as saying "The syllabus will be based on citizenship, patriotism and the Constitution" and "with emphasis on enhancing the understanding of the constitution so as to enlighten students about the country’s nation-building process."
#3 -- how are the 10-year-olds going to ever understand how the country works? Leave this sort of thing to the teenagers by all means! If 10-year-olds can't comprehend, pls do not even expect the 7-year-old's to even know what's going on. Poor moms and dads who try to help with homework during that time would have to mug up on "history" pula.
#4 -- seem more like brainwash session than anything else

As with everything else, how it will be implemented is still a big question mark. From the above links, the newspaper reported "The ministry is promoting fun learning. This subject will see a lot of interesting activities, including trips to historical places, field studies, dramas and sketches."

Historical sites visits, even visits to the Parliment! That was mentioned in one of the links. Kids got better things to learn and do than to be meddling with politics! At local level, if they are to go visiting historical sites, the children would probably just need to take the "Heritage Trail" at Penang. However not sure if that's what the authorities wanted as Penang's Heritage Trail doesn't seem to fit the above "unsur kewarganegaraan, patriotisme dan perlembagaan" . Neither does the British heritage such as Fort Cornwallis, the Francis Light or British-ruled related sites nor the churches or temples. But that's history for you, bah!

About the dramas/sketches as part of history method of learning, I am speechless. Stick on moustaches and pretend to be Datuk so-and-so in "history"??

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

No Remove class for those with a C in UPSR BM

Wanted to note down what was published in The Star today about remove class.

In case the post is moved, here is the report copied here:

"STUDENTS from vernacular primary schools can go straight to Form 1 without going to Remove class if they obtain a minimum Grade C for Bahasa Malaysia in the UPSR, Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.
He said pupils who passed the subject with at least a Grade C and could communicate in Bahasa Malaysia are allowed to go straight to Form 1 beginning from Oct 14 last year."

Heard of another option if BM result is not good, which is to go to private chinese school.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Kindy open day

There's a kindy near our home that I'm interested to send our prince. They're having open day on 8 Oct 2011. There's promotion like 50% off for registration fees and free colouring book. However it might be next year that we might visit as it's not time to change kindy yet. Heard this kindy is quite good and academic-focused.

I'm recording down the Open Day date for reference next year.